In a word: superstition. Gambling is one of the most superstitious businesses in the world and it's not limited to the players. The casinos, too, respond to superstitions of all kinds, especially those of their big hitters.
The Rio has traditionally been very popular with the Asian crowd, and in some Asian languages the word for the number 4, "si" in Chinese Mandarin and "shi" in Japanese, also sounds like the word for "death" and is therefore considered highly unlucky. (A researcher at the University of California-San Diego even conducted a study which found that deaths caused by heart attacks among U.S. residents of Chinese and Japanese descent tend to spike on the fourth of the month, apparently as a result of increased stress brought about by fear of the number itself.) So, in deference to their Asian clientele, the Rio decided to skip the 40s in the Masquerade Tower. Thus, when the elevator tells you you’re getting out on the 52nd floor, you’re really only on the 42nd.
Allegedly for the same reason, the Palms also chose to omit the 40s when numbering the floors in its towers and also, consistently but unlike the Rio, skips the fourth floor. However, superstition does not explain why the Palms also skips floors 32 through 39, or why Mandalay Bay skips the 40s and the 50s. (Several calls to the MBay front desk assured us that this was because of "Asian superstition," but we know of no negative connotations surrounding the number 5.)
In all instances, our (cynical) suspicion is that Asian superstition actually provides a convenient excuse for massaging floor numbers to make these towers sound taller than they are. Once one casino does it, it becomes a matter of "keeping up with the Jones," of course, so the Palms was almost obliged to copy the Rio, its kitty-corner neighbor, whose motives for skipping floors were perhaps more genuinely dictated by the social mores of its Asian clientele.
And when it came to the design of its high-roller accommodation, the Rio paid even closer attention to Asian superstitions. The Palazzo Suites -- a self-contained nine-suite "villa" at the back of the Rio -- was custom-built for the casino's biggest players, paying close attention to their personal likes, phobias, and idiosyncrasies. Not only was the number 4 omitted from all room signage and floor numbering, but also from any promotional product literature. The hotel even commissioned original "lucky" artwork in the shape of a painting featuring multiple figures of 8, a number considered to be highly auspicious in Asian cultures because of its similarity to the word for "prosper." By the same token, the toll-free numbers for all Asian gamblers are always on 888 area codes, rather than just 800 numbers. In Chinese, the word for "book" sounds very much like the word for "lose," and one high-stakes gambler from China was troubled by this. As the hotel could never be certain of which suite he would be staying in, whenever he showed up they not only removed all the books from all the rooms, but even cut the spines off the TV guides, so that they were reduced to piles of paper with no conceivable resemblance to books.
In every aspect of the design, close attention was paid to the principles of feng shui. For example, there is water at the entrance to the facility and real living plants throughout -- nothing is artificial or dried. The placement of the corridors and walls is designed to allow chi to flow and circulate, and there are views of gardens and water all the way from the Suites to the casino. Each master bedroom is located as far as possible from the front door and no bedroom has its entrance at the foot of the bed -- both considered important for peace of mind and good fortune. The extensive collection of original antiques features no "headless" statues -- some genuine antique Roman figures had to be removed as they were missing body parts.
The most famous example of a casino in Las Vega
